Retooled San Jose Sharks Move On, and Away From Past Failures

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The Sharks’ Logan Couture, center, was congratulated by Joonas Donskoi, left, and Brent Burns after he scored against the Predators in Game 7 of their playoff series on Thursday night.CreditCreditEzra Shaw/Getty Images

By David Pollak

May 13, 2016

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The too-familiar sentiment surfaced early in the week when the San Jose Sharks surrendered a two-goal lead and failed to eliminate the Nashville Predators in the sixth game of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

“Same old Sharks.”

Among Bay Area hockey fans, the phrase has become shorthand to express their springtime frustration with a team that historically has fallen short of postseason expectations.

Much hockey remains to be played, but the Sharks made a convincing case Thursday night that things may indeed be different with an overpowering 5-0 victory over the Predators that sends San Jose into the Western Conference finals against a St. Louis Blues team also trying to overcome playoff demons.

For the past nine months, Peter DeBoer, who is completing his first season as the San Jose coach, has tried to distance his locker room from the franchise’s past. The Game 7 performance enabled him to reinforce his point that this team would write its own story.

“That’s genuine, that’s from our group,” DeBoer said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of new bodies and a whole different cast of characters and a whole different identity in my mind and a whole different coaching staff. The core guys are still the same, but the core guys here are great. They have great habits, they’ve been well coached for a decade by the previous staff that was here. They’re not the problem.”

The problem, DeBoer continued, “was filling in behind them, and we’ve got those types of people here now, and I think the guys at the top feel that and are feeding on it.”

Those core players are the ones who buried the Predators. Goals came from Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Logan Couture as well as one of the depth forwards acquired last summer, Joel Ward. Another first-year Shark, the goaltender Martin Jones, made 20 saves to earn his first playoff shutout.

But beyond that was a teamwide effort. San Jose outshot Nashville, 17-3, in the first period. The Sharks pressured the Predators’ All-Star defenseman, Shea Weber, into a series of mistakes that resulted in his being on the ice for all five San Jose goals.

That level of domination was not what San Jose fans have come to expect after two particularly painful springs.

In 2014, the Sharks became only the fourth team in N.H.L. history to lose a playoff series after winning the first three games when they dropped four straight to the Los Angeles Kings. A year ago, San Jose failed to qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2003.

After a mutual parting of the ways with Coach Todd McLellan, General Manager Doug Wilson began the retooling. He hired DeBoer, then acquired Jones — a backup with Los Angeles who had been traded to Boston — as the replacement for Antti Niemi.

Wilson stabilized the blue line by signing the free-agent defenseman Paul Martin as a stay-at-home partner for the freewheeling Brent Burns, who developed into a Norris Trophy finalist. Wilson added even more depth at the trade deadline by picking up defenseman Roman Polak and forward Nick Spaling from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The makeover worked. San Jose returned to the playoffs, exacting its revenge on Los Angeles in the first round by eliminating the Kings in five games to set up the series with Nashville.

Fittingly, it was Pavelski who opened the scoring against the Predators in Game 7 with his ninth goal of the postseason, tying him with Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov for the lead in the playoffs.

The 205th player taken in the 2003 draft, Pavelski has become one of the N.H.L.’s premier marksmen since his debut with the Sharks in 2006. His 116 goals over the past three regular seasons are second only to the 154 by Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin.

Pavelski is quick to acknowledge that playing alongside Thornton, who joined the Sharks in a 2005 trade, has helped. But that overlooks Pavelski’s ability to find seams on the ice, or his knack for deflecting shots past startled goalies.

The Sharks are well aware that as rewarding as the two playoff series victories have been, much work lies ahead if the team is to reach the Stanley Cup finals for the first time.

Their next series, which opens Sunday in St. Louis, will be San Jose’s fourth appearance in the conference finals. The Sharks were eliminated in six games by the Calgary Flames in 2004, in four games by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010 and in five games by the Vancouver Canucks in 2011.

That futility, too, contributes to the “same old Sharks” stigma. Couture, whose 17 playoff points lead the N.H.L., knows that it will not likely be erased by one exceptional performance against Nashville.

“There will be doubters unless we go all the way,” he said. “We’re used to it. You’re a hockey player and you can’t let it bother you. You worry about what’s in the room and go forward.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: Escaping Past Pitfalls, the Retooled Sharks Move On. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe